Sabine Heuser’s Virtual Geographies is an ambitious attempt to relate the
1980s-and-continuing phenomenon of cyberpunk to the more general field of
science fiction, and to postmodernist literature, art, and architecture. It
focuses on the work of William Gibson, Pat Cadigan, and Neal Stephenson, three
of the best-known and most impressive authors to have attracted the “cyberpunk”
label, though it cannot be attached to any of them (or perhaps to anyone)
without a certain amount of hedging. Gibson, the cyberpunk par excellence, has
expressed discomfort with the label. So has Cadigan, who was less directly
involved in the early days of the supposed “movement,” although Bruce Sterling
identified her in 1984 as one of the new group of radical, hard-edged sf
writers. Stephenson is, perhaps, a second-generation cyberpunk, and his
celebrated novel Snow Crash (1992) reads in many ways as a parody of
cyberpunk writing.

All the same, Gibson’s Neuromancer (1984) and such stories of the
1980s as “Johnny Mnemonic” (1981) and “Burning Chrome” (1985) are the paradigm
texts of cyberpunk. If Gibson in this phase was not a cyberpunk writer, no one
ever was. Similarly, Cadigan’s early novels and Stephenson’s Snow Crash
display many of the identifying elements of cyberpunk. Heuser’s inclusion of
Cadigan and Stephenson in her study gives it greater range than would a narrower
concentration on those writers who were most prominently identified with the
phenomenon in the early 1980s: Gibson plus (for example) Bruce Sterling, John
Shirley, and Lewis Shiner.

By examining the work of Cadigan and Stephenson, Heuser is able to test more
broadly just what elements identify cyberpunk writing, while also exploring some
of cyberpunk’s wider possibilities. If anything, the study would have benefitted
by extending the range beyond prose fiction, with some detailed discussions of
works from other media, such as cinema, television, and comics.

In all, Heuser’s project begins with a promising idea, and she has chosen an
appropriate set of writers to examine. There is already a rich body of scholarly
work that explores science fiction and postmodernism, including Damien
Broderick’s Reading by Starlight: Postmodern Science Fiction (1995),
which Heuser discusses briefly. Few if any earlier studies, however, discuss the
constellation of ideas—sf-postmodernism-cyberpunk—in the detail that Virtual
Geographies attempts. That said, I am not sure that Heuser ever provides a
clear or convincing analysis of the relationship between cyberpunk and
postmodernism, though she does have many insightful comments about it.

Her significant achievement in this book is a detailed and provocative
discussion of the history, concerns, and icons of cyberpunk itself, as well as
her useful analyses of several important novels: Gibson’s Neuromancer;
Cadigan’s Mindplayers (1987), Synners (1991), and Fools
(1992); and Stephenson’s Snow Crash. Most impressively, her analysis
shows that “cyberpunk” is not merely an empty label. In one sense, of course,
that must be true, since there were historical connections and influences among
many of the alleged cyberpunks in the halcyon days of the early 1980s. To some
extent, Gibson, Sterling, and others really did form a literary movement within
the sf field, however short-lived it was, and however much the individual
writers welcomed or rejected the actual label of “cyberpunk.”

Heuser brings out many important connections and summarizes the roles of some
key players. She mentions Terry Carr, who commissioned and edited Neuromancer;
Ellen Datlow, who, as Omni’s fiction editor, provided a relatively
high-profile market for Gibson’s early fiction; Gardner Dozois, who popularized
the word “cyberpunk” (though he did not invent it); and, of course, Sterling,
whose polemics in his magazine Cheap Truth, his Mirrorshades
(1986) anthology, and elsewhere, were all-important.

More importantly, Heuser discusses the formal elements that identify
cyberpunk, whether in the form of narrative prose or visual performance, or
implied by musical lyrics or computer-game scenarios. She points to two main
elements, or clusters of elements, which might be summarized as follows without
too much distortion: first, the presence within the narrative of advanced
cybernetic technology that enables some form of full-sensory-immersion virtual
reality (“VR”); second, a “punk” quality that typically includes depictions of
street life, youthful rebellion (particularly, but not solely, against the power
of ubiquitous, transnational business corporations), tough-guy attitudes and
dress codes, certain specific images (such as those of rust, chrome, concrete,
and reflective glass), and a prose style that foregrounds the punk element and
its imagery.

In addition, cyberpunk’s concern with cybernetic technology typically
involves some degree of adherence to a functionalist view of mind, self, and
memory. Heuser does not use that terminology, but she gives considerable
emphasis to the prevalent assumption in cyberpunk narratives that mind, self,
and memory can all be grounded in digital, as well as neuronal, substrates. They
are products of computational activity, whether in the brain or in advanced
computer hardware. To a greater or lesser extent, cyberpunk writing works with
the idea that mind, self, and memory can be transferred from brain to computer
(or vice versa), from computer to computer, or from brain to brain.

Heuser adds to this picture by providing an extensive discussion of the built
environments depicted in cyberpunk narratives. She identifies a concern with
damage and ruins—with the appropriation of buildings and living spaces for new
and diverse purposes. It is as if cyberpunk is deliberately trashing the
edifices of the international style of architecture, rejecting their corporate
purposes in favor of a postmodernist pluralism.

Heuser’s analysis of the way in which cyberpunk depicts architecture does not
entirely convince me. I am not sure that she has demonstrated any direct line of
influence from postmodernist architecture to the 1980s cyberpunks, if that was
her intention; but she does seem to be on to something. Her analysis at least
shows the rational possibility of such an influence. Even if no historical
influence took place, she demonstrates cyberpunk’s concern with ruins, damage to
the natural and built environments, architectural grunge, and appropriated
spaces. All of this is, perhaps, related to the “punk” quality implicit in
“cyberpunk.”

It seems possible to take this kind of formal analysis further than Heuser
does herself. For a start, there is probably a limited range of thematic puzzles
that can be examined through the use of full-immersion VR as a plot device
(these are largely to do with the nature of reality, the possibility and
desirability of life in a simulated world). Therefore, it is not surprising that
many works that appear related to cyberpunk, and show the “punk” element in
spades, do not specifically depict full-immersion VR. Often there is still a
“cyber” element, but it takes the form of an emphasis on some form of machine
intelligence or merger of machinery with the human body. Works of this kind seem
to stand outside the core of cyberpunk, especially if they were not historically
influenced by the original group of cyberpunk writers; still, they display much
the same sensibility and aesthetic values.

Viewed in this way, some important sf movies of the 1980s and thereafter
appear to be closely related to cyberpunk without being core cyberpunk works.
Perhaps the best example is Blade Runner (1982), which closely resembles
Gibson’s early cyberpunk fiction—so much so, indeed, that Gibson reportedly
found it disturbing to watch when it was first released: it was too close in its
resemblance to Neuromancer, which he was writing at the time. Similarly,
The Terminator (1984) and its sequels have many cyberpunk elements,
though they are perhaps further than Blade Runner from core cyberpunk.

By contrast, The Matrix (1999) and its sequels appear to be
latter-day, core-cyberpunk works. The Matrix is clearly influenced by
Gibson’s writing, and it closely resembles Neuromancer in its look, feel,
and tone. It shows pretty much all the formal elements and icons of 1980s
cyberpunk, and is arguably the most important full-on cyberpunk work since
Neuromancer itself.

When the internal elements of cyberpunk narratives are analyzed in this way,
it assists discussion of its origins, influence, and possible future. Heuser’s
analysis should help open the way for considerably more sophisticated treatment
than has commonly been achieved to date. While I have extended Heuser’s own
discussion in making some of these points, they seem to confirm that Heuser has
given a robust and sophisticated account of cyberpunk’s formal elements. For
that reason alone, her work should find a valuable place in continuing scholarly
discussion of the cyberpunk phenomenon.

Unfortunately, Virtual Geographies is flawed in some ways. The more
minor difficulties relate to structure, format, and style. The problem is not
with Heuser’s actual prose, which is intelligent, flexible, and generally very
clear, even when the author is trying to explain a difficult point. She
discusses complex issues with only a necessary minimum of theoretical jargon.
The book is marred, however, by what sometimes seems an overly-zealous wish to
cover every possible aspect or side issue, even if it sometimes requires that
the footnotes take up as much space on the page as the actual text. Heavy
footnoting, with some notes over three hundred words long, often makes reading
the book a frustrating experience. The use of endnotes, rather than footnotes,
would have obviated this considerably, and that would have been a much better
format for this book. In any event, much of what is contained in the notes is
tangential to the argument and probably could have been removed. Other material
could have been incorporated into the body of the text, with some additional
work.

The problem of readability is aggravated by the overall structure, which
includes an authorial introduction almost forty pages long, paginated with Roman
numerals, before the commencement of the text proper. It is not obvious to me
why anyone would need to write a forty-page introduction to her own scholarly
work, unless new ideas or theoretical underpinnings are being introduced as an
afterthought. The material in the introduction is directly relevant, and goes
far beyond a brief explanation of methodology (for example), so a way should
have been found to restructure the book and assimilate the introduction’s ideas
in the main text. This might have involved no more than calling the introduction
the book’s first chapter, but the text proper already starts with a long chapter
entitled “Introducing Cyberpunk.” Thus, I found myself eighty pages into a
relatively short book, and feeling rather lost, before reaching material that
was not, in one way or the other, labeled as introductory.

More important than any of these distractions is the fact that Virtual
Geographies contains too many specific claims that are inaccurate,
misleading, or just plain odd. As I read the book, I was struck by this often
enough to question the extent of Heuser’s general grounding in the wider science
fiction field. I have not compiled anything like an exhaustive list of points
that struck me, but will give just a few examples. As might be expected, Heuser
discusses the disagreements among critics, scholars, and others as to who,
exactly, belongs in the original 1980s group of cyberpunk writers. Then, in a
footnote, she makes this remarkable statement: “Just to illustrate how little
agreement there is about who should be included under the new label cyberpunk,
even one of its main promoters, Bruce Sterling, insists on including himself
among the ranks” (7). But why “even one of its main promoters”? How does
Sterling’s inclusion of himself in the group, or movement, of cyberpunk writers
illustrate any disagreement about who was in or out? There is nothing
inconsistent, or even especially strange, in a writer’s belonging to a new
literary group while also being one of its “main promoters.” Even if one
questions how much of Sterling’s fiction is core cyberpunk in its formal
elements, his historical inclusion in the 1980s grouping of cyberpunks is not a
matter of scholarly disagreement. He is one of the very few whose presence in
the original group of mutually-influenced writers is undisputed. If anyone apart
from Gibson is in, that someone must be Sterling.

Another oddity is Heuser’s definition of a “semiprozine” as a magazine with a
circulation of less than 100,000 and at least 1,000 (11). She references this to
Peter Nicholls’s “Semiprozine” entry in the authoritative Clute/Nicholls
Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (1993). Yet Nicholls actually explains that
a magazine qualifies as a semiprozine if it has a print run of less than 10,000
(not 100,000) and has published at least four issues (at least one in the
previous calendar year). Heuser does refer to some of the other criteria, but in
a garbled way. In short, she misunderstands the concept, despite having read
Nicholls’s encyclopedia entry. This confusion is not important to Heuser’s
argument, but it is not the sort of error that I would expect from someone with
a strong general grounding in the sf field.

Elsewhere, Heuser imagines that the movie Johnny Mnemonic (1995)
adheres closely to the text of Gibson’s original short story of the same name
(18), though that is far from being the case. She displays only a faint
familiarity with The Terminator and its sequel, Terminator 2: Judgment
Day (1991), despite wishing to use them to make general points about the
cinematic portrayal of cyborgs. She refers to “the cyborgs” (plural) in these
two movies morphing into a liquid-metal state (75). Some pages later, she makes
a similar claim about “the liquid-chrome Terminators in the movie Terminator
[sic]” (86). In fact, no such characters appear in The Terminator, though
one (singular) morphing, liquid-metal character does appear in Terminator 2.
Since Virtual Geographies was written, Terminator 3: Rise of the
Machines (2003) has appeared in the cinemas, and it also features a humanoid
killing machine that is partly constructed from liquid metal, but Heuser is
clearly not referring to this movie (indeed, she discusses no works published or
released after the year 2000).

The predominant image of “the cyborg” in the Terminator movies is actually
nothing like Heuser’s description. Instead, that image is of the three
physically identical characters played by Arnold Schwarzenegger—one in each of
the three movies. These “cybernetic organisms,” as they are referred to, are
massive, somewhat ponderous, hypermasculine juggernauts constructed of steel
alloy and bulging human flesh. The stealthy, catlike, shapeshifting characters
played by Robert Patrick in Terminator 2 and by Kristanna Loken in
Terminator 3 are introduced by way of a sinister contrast to this dominant
image. Such errors of memory or understanding suggest that the information in
Virtual Geographies needs to be used with caution.

In addition to its structural and stylistic problems, and its specific errors
and oddities, Virtual Geography is a weaker book than it might have been
if it had included some detailed discussions of cyberpunk elements in non-prose
works. Heuser does briefly discuss cyberpunk-related cinema and a few specific
movies. With some plausibility, she refers to the movie version of Lawnmower
Man (1992) as the most successful cinematic representation of virtual
reality “[n]ext to The Matrix (1999)” (19). What is surprising is that
these few words are her only reference to The Matrix, even though she
evidently considers it the most successful cinematic representation of virtual
reality. Despite that assessment, and the fact that The Matrix captured
the essence of Gibson-style cyberpunk more precisely than any other movie that
had been made at the time she was writing her book, Heuser does not even include
it in her Cyberpunk Time Line at the back of the volume. Yet she includes an
episode of The X-Files from 2000 scripted by Gibson with Tom Maddox.

The release of The Matrix was a defining moment in the cultural influence
of cyberpunk. It achieved commercial success and a great deal of journalistic
and academic attention, ultimately leading to the release, in 2003, of two
sequels plus a series of short animated movies collectively known as The
Animatrix. Heuser could not, of course, have been aware of these further
works when she was writing Virtual Geographies, but even the success of
the first movie should have suggested that cyberpunk narrative retains a
potential for significant cultural impact. Perhaps because she does not wish to
range too widely beyond the area of prose fiction, Heuser is too quick to assume
that cyberpunk in its purer forms is dead, and that its elements have been
diffused and absorbed into the more general fields of science fiction and
popular entertainment.

Despite this criticism, Heuser provides useful, detailed readings of
individual books by William Gibson, Pat Cadigan, and Neal Stephenson. These
occupy about a third of Virtual Geographies, and they are so detailed and
sensitive that they should be consulted by anyone doing research on these
authors. Even here, however, some care needs to be taken with her conclusions,
though that could, of course, be said of almost any critical text.

One point worth challenging is Heuser’s claim that Gibson seems to promote “a
throw-away attitude to the body,” whereas, by contrast, Cadigan “consistently
and radically questions the Cartesian mind-body split” (167). This claim is
pardoned insofar as it is almost a cliché of contemporary sf criticism that
cyberpunk endorses or reintroduces such a Cartesian “split.” A better
conclusion, however, would be that all of the cyberpunks, including Gibson,
radically reject the Cartesian account of the self. The philosophical position
assumed, or entertained, in cyberpunk writing is functionalist rather than
Cartesian: i.e., mind is seen by the cyberpunks as dependent on the functioning
of matter—rather than as separable from it. Descartes would not have been
pleased by Gibson’s work, though some of his contemporaries, such as Hobbes and
Gassendi, might have been.

Gibson does not imagine the possibility that mind, self, or memory could
exist independently of the physical world—the central claim of the Cartesian
analysis of the self. Moreover, when his work does depict some kind of mental
life attached to a physical-but-non-biological substrate, it is usually with
anxious questioning and at least some sense of loss. This can be seen with such
characters as the Dixie Flatline construct in Neuromancer, and most
poignantly in Gibson’s vivid, emotional story of personality uploading (into
digital form), “The Winter Market” (1986). I suspect that Gibson is the victim
of a contemporary penchant for literary scholars to spot Cartesian dualism
everywhere, and to treat it as a kind of sociopolitical enemy.

Virtual Geographies is a significant contribution to our understanding
of the cyberpunk phenomenon. It contains some convincing discussion of
architectural fabrications and spaces in cyberpunk narratives, useful readings
of particular books, and many insights. Overall, however, it would have been
worthwhile for the author to have undertaken another full draft before the book
reached the stage of publication. As it stands, Virtual Geographies is
not entirely successful, and scholars, teachers, or students should use it with
a degree of caution.